The Mary Rose: A Tudor ship's secrets revealed

The archer

The skeleton of an archer reveals he was in his early 20s and 178cm (5ft 10in). He was taller than many of the crew and well built, with strong legs. The middle of his spine is twisted, making one shoulder lower than the other - a feature is seen on other skeletons found with archery equipment. One of his right finger bones has grooves on the inside, forming a ridge. This could have been made by repeatedly pulling a longbow string. He was wearing a leather jerkin and a longbow was found nearby.

The cook

This image of the cook is based on the skeleton found closest to the galley. His skeleton is virtually complete and shows that he was in his 30s, about 168cm (5ft 6in) and with heavy, strong bones. Evidence from his ribs and backbone suggests he spent much of his working life bent over. Some graffiti found on a bowl and a tankard suggests that his name might have been Ny Cop or Ny Coep. His ladle, comb, knives, shoes, spoon and coins were found nearby.

The carpenter

This man was found immediately below the master carpenter's cabin. He was in his mid to late 30s, 172cm (5ft 7in), strong and muscular, but had arthritis in his spine and ribs. Unlike many of the crew, he had spare clothes, which he kept in his chest along with personal items. Only someone with wealth and status would have been allowed a personal chest on the crowded ship. He also had a backgammon game and dice in his cabin, and a number of woodworking tools were next to him.

The master gunner

The master gunner was 170cm (5ft 7in) and in his late 20s or early 30s. He had very bad teeth - 11 were missing before he died and most of those left were badly decayed, leaving abscesses in his jaws. His skeleton reveals that although he had strong muscular legs, his neck bones had degenerated and the base of his spine was compacted. This may be the result of years of hauling guns into position and lifting heavy gunpowder chambers, a task which took a team of four or six men.

The purser

The purser, who controlled food and drink onboard, was a robust, strong and muscular man, with good teeth and an old head wound which had healed. He was in his 30s and about 170cm (5ft 7in). The top of his leg bones and his hip joints are flat, so he must have walked with a rolling gait and would not have been able to straighten his back, so could not have been an active crew member. He had fishing floats with him, suggesting he either had to supplement the ship's food, or he simply enjoyed fishing.

The officer

This sketch is based on evidence from the remains of a man in his late 30s or early 40s, 163cm (5ft 4in). Like many others he had bad teeth, with decay, tartar and abscesses, especially of the molars. His bones show that he did manual work when he was younger. But he must have risen in rank because he was found with a silver call - a whistle. Officers carried a call to give orders, because it could be heard clearly around the deck.

The mystery gentleman

This man, in his mid 20s, was found trapped behind a chest. He may have been a gunner - the gun beside him was being re-loaded as the ship sank. But he also had features in his shoulder blades often found in archers, and a longbow and arrows were also found close by. Inside the chest was a leather pouch embroidered with silver thread, a writing seal with the initials "GI", a lead token dated 1542 and silver coins. It also contained a carved bone panel showing two angels carrying candles, which experts believe is a keepsake from a casket produced by the Embriachi family in Venice around 1420.

Hatch the dog

The skeleton of a dog was found near the sliding door to the carpenter’s cabin. Museum staff have named the mongrel Hatch. He was a young, healthy male, aged between 18 months and two years when he died. Hatch looked like a cross between a terrier and a whippet and was probably used to catch rats onboard. Superstitious Tudor seafarers did not have cats on board ship as they were thought to bring bad luck.

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More than 30 years after it was raised from the seabed - and almost 500 years since it sank - the secrets of Henry VIII's flagship, the Mary Rose, are being revealed to the public - along with the faces of its crew.

Just yards from where it was first constructed from 600 oak trees near Portsmouth's naval docks in 1510, the wreck of the Tudor warship now stands on view in its new £35m home.

Where once stood a proud, cutting-edge ship built for war, now lies a reconstructed array of wooden decks and pillars, withered by their hundreds of years at the bottom of the Solent.

Standing nearby are some of the men who shared a grave with the ship for hundreds of years, their faces now reconstructed and displayed for the first time.

Viewed through windows on three separate floors, the preserved wreck stands opposite some of its 19,000 artefacts recovered from the depths.

"What we're aiming to achieve here is a mirror image of the ship and to show artefacts where they belonged," explains Nick Butterley, exhibition co-ordinator.

"So many things in this gallery you can immediately look at and understand what they are. That's one of the real beauties of the collection, how realistic and normal it feels."

Every artefact on show here is an original piece found with the wreck. Some of the cannons were still sticking out of the gunports when it was discovered in 1971.

The Mary Rose was raised from the seabed of the Solent in 1982, and has been on display before, but it is only now that insights into life on board are being shown to the public.

Forensic scientists, more used to working with murder victims, have recreated the faces of seven of the about 500 men who died when the ship sank in 1545.

The new Mary Rose Museum has been dedicated to them, and it is through them the story of the ship is now being told.

Curators had no list of crew names, just numbers. Only the names of the vice admiral, Sir George Carew, and the master, Roger Grenville, are known.

Maritime archaeologist Alex Hildred was part of the team who excavated and raised the wreck and has since studied the human remains to discover more about the men and boys - whose ages range from 12 to 40 - found on board.

"You've got a really good glimpse of Tudor males at a moment in time," she says. "It's a healthy, living population, you are not looking at a churchyard.

"They were pretty well fed once they were on the ship - we know that from the diet. But there had been severe famines in the 1520s, so some of their bones have got evidence of vitamin deficiency, such as rickets or sometimes scurvy from the fact that they suffered as children.

"They've also got a lot of healed fractures - which is what you'd expect on a warship - a number of broken noses, one arrow wound and some arthritis. These guys were used to lifting heavy things."

The human remains found are displayed in galleries at the bow and stern of the ship, along with thousands of artefacts.

"This is where we personalise the collection, trying to show that these objects belonged to real people who lived and sadly died on the ship," explains maritime archaeologist Christopher Dobbs, giving the BBC a guided tour.

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Forensic artist Oscar Nilsson explains to Robert Hall how he created a model of one of the sailors who drowned on the Mary Rose

"One thing that's so powerful about the Mary Rose collection is that we found a number of chests in the ship and they tell us about an individual person, because they contain the objects that belonged to a person."

He says the master carpenter's chest, for example, contained three plates, a tankard, a sundial, a book and even a backgammon set - indicating "quite a wealthy person".

"We also, just outside the carpenter's cabin, found the skeleton of a dog," he adds.

"It's these tiny insights that we've got into Tudor life, as well as the obvious things like guns and rigging, that really make our display so exceptional."

Trapped and drowned

When the Mary Rose was built, it was part of a new generation of modern carvel-built ships - planks laid side to side - which featured gunports with lids, allowing heavier guns to be carried.

The warship fought its first battle in 1512 against France after King Henry VIII joined Pope Julius II's Holy League against the French the previous year. It fought many more over the next 34 years.

The recovered wreck is on show behind glass walls opposite the artefacts

But Mary Rose's life as a serving Navy ship came to an abrupt end on 19 July 1545, when it sank during the Battle of the Solent while, once again, leading the attack on the French invasion fleet.

Francis I was attempting an invasion of England with 30,000 soldiers and more than 220 ships - much larger than the more well-known Spanish Armada 43 years later.

“Start Quote

It was like a time capsule within a time capsule, within a time capsule”

End QuoteChristopher DobbsMaritime archaeologist

The English had about 60 ships and 12,000 soldiers, but managed to fight off the French who eventually retreated the day after the Mary Rose sank.

Only 35 men survived disaster, according to contemporary records. Many would have been trapped under the anti-boarding netting and drowned.

Legend has it that Henry VIII watched in horror from Southsea castle along with the wife of Vice Admiral Sir George Carew.

As the ship sank, the cries and screams from the drowning men and boys could be heard back on land. The loss of the ship is said to have affected the king deeply.

Accounts on what happened that day differ, but one survivor claimed the ship had just fired its guns on one side and was turning to fire from the other when the wind caught its sails and plunged the open gunports below the water, which sank it.

French historians claim its forces were responsible for sinking the Mary Rose in battle.

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